DELHI COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING, DELHI: Jewel In Delhi’s Crown

Delhi College of Engineering was setup in 1940, originally as Delhi

Polytechnic, functioning out of the building that was in 1639 the library of

Dara Shikoh. DCE is presently under the control of Government of National

Capital Territory of Delhi (Delhi Administration) since 1963 and is affiliated

to the University of Delhi since 1952.

In the past 63 years, DCE has produced over 23,000 graduates and

post-graduates in engineering and technology.

While students are admitted on the basis of an entrance exam conducted by the

Faculty of Technology, University of Delhi, DCE still needs the students to have

scored a minimum of 60% in PCM at the 10+2 level. "We feel that the PCM

score is still very proxy to judge the technical skills of a students,"

says Prof PB Sharma, Principal, DCE.

Professional Orientation



Prof Sharma believes that in order to produce world-class engineers, they

must be provided with three types of inputs. While the first is definitely

academic, the second is input about application. "We therefore believe in

supplementing classroom input with expert views," adds Prof Sharma. The

third and the most important is professional orientation. An input that readies

the students to becomes practitioners of engineering science.

And it is to ensure this that DCE houses the local chapters of six

professional bodies that include Institute of Electrical and Electronics

Engineers (IEEE), Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE), American Society of

Mechanical Engineers (ASME), Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), American

Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) and

Society for Experimental Mechanics (SEM). All students and teachers are members

of these professional bodies and are therefore, exposed to the leading edge of

technology in their respective fields of study. "These bodies links the

students to the industry and therefore make them better prepared

professionally," adds Prof Sharma. In order to ensure this industry

orientation, DCE students go out for live projects after the sixth and the

seventh semesters of study for a period of two months each.

Nurturing Entrepreneurs



The vision for the college as articulated by its Principal is to nurture

entrepreneurial talent. The idea is create a breed of engineers who believe in

the diktat of solution oriented design engineering. Says Prof Sharma,

"While we blame technology for a number of evils, we forget that most of

them can be solved by technology alone." And this is the driving idea

behind what students and faculty are doing together.

DCE believes that it has to work like an enterprise to succeed in this new

economy and for that it needs to cultivate, disseminate knowledge and also turn

the same into commercial products or services. "That’s how we will march

into the developed world," adds Prof. Sharma.

Incubating Ideas



The college has set up a formal entrepreneurship development cell to

identify and take good ideas and projects forward. The role of the college is

also now to manage innovation and incubate technology. And why not, computer

science graduates from DCE are a bunch of bright boys and girls. They demand an

average salary of Rs 3.5 lakh that went as high as Rs 8.25 lakh. Infosys emerged

as a star recruiter here picking up as many as 57 candidates.